He was personal friends with George Bernard Shaw, Noel Coward, Robert Graves & E.M. Forster. These were some of the most prolific writers of their time. He himself wrote several books including Seven Pillars of Wisdom, for which he never received a penny. All the proceeds went to a fund to help families of British soldiers killed in service.
I was reading an account of the last few years of Lawrence's life. He wrote an unpublished memoir of his time as an enlisted man in the British Royal Air Force. In it, he expresses his dissatisfaction with the way things were & the desire to a part of some thing larger. I could hardly believe what I was reading. This man, who had lived as full a life as anyone, was communicating a desire to be a part of something big. He wanted his life to matter.
The story of T.E. Lawrence is too common. Not that we all lead an Arab revolt against an Ottoman army, but we all long to leave our mark, to be remembered for something great. There is a desire deep inside each of us to be special.
It comes in a wide variety of forms. It may be the car you drive, the clothes you wear, or the shampoo you use. The commercials for each of these lead us to believe that our lives will be significantly improved, and by default more valuable if we use their products. The marketing agencies play on our insecurities & fear that our lives don't matter. They are trying to convince us that all we need to do is drive the right car for our lives to be important. The problem is that every year there's a newer model & new pressure to keep up.
Sometimes we will associate ourselves with someone famous. I worked for a "professional" baseball team while we lived in Fort Worth. It gave me the chance to interact with a number of former Major League baseball players. I will be the first to tell you that it was fun. I loved it. But I also loved to see people's reactions when I told them who I knew. For just a moment, it elevated my status. It made me matter.
We see this in the lives of parents who live through their kids athletic achievements, or the man who throws himself into 70 hour work weeks. We are all looking for a way to matter.
Psalm 139 talks specifically about the love of God for us. It says that we are "fearfully & wonderfully made" & that if we could count God's thoughts about us, "they would be more in number than the sand." The God of the universe can't get you off of His mind.
God looks at us like an artist looks at his finished canvas or a mother looks at her newborn. We are loved because we are His creation. He has been desperately in love with us since the beginning of time & desires for us to know that we were his idea. And just in case you didn't know, He doesn't have bad ideas.
I don't need my church, my job, my auto maker, a clothing designer or anyone else to tell me that my life matters. My creator already did.
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